Illegal Southwest border crossings were down 40% last month, according to just released Customs and Border Protection numbers -- a sign that President Donald Trump's hardline rhetoric and policies on immigration may be having a deterrent effect.
Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly himself announced the month-to-month numbers, statistics that CBP usually quietly posts on its website without fanfare.
According to CBP data, the 40% drop in illegal Southwest border crossings from January to February is far outside normal seasonal trends. Typically, the January to February change is actually an increase of 10% to 20%.
The drop breaks a nearly 20-year trend, as CBP data going back to 2000 shows an uptick in apprehensions every February.
The number of apprehensions and inadmissible individuals presenting at the border was 18,762 people in February, down from 31,578 in January.
It will still take months to figure out if the decrease in apprehensions is an indication of a lasting Trump effect on immigration patterns. Numbers tend to decrease seasonally in the winter and increase into the spring months.
But the sharp downtick after an uptick at the end of the Obama administration could fit the narrative that it takes tough rhetoric on immigration -- backed up by policy -- to get word-of-mouth warnings to undocumented immigrants making the harrowing journey to the border.
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/08/politics/border-crossings-huge-drop-trump-tough-talk/index.html
Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday March 13 2017, @07:37PM
Do you conveniently forget history when it suites you? Sure the British had a colony here, but there were many other settlers ("Immigrants") from all over Europe here as well. Many of those who fought in the revolutionary war against Britain were foreign born such as Tadeusz Kościuszko [wikipedia.org].
And it's not like the US hasn't seen its fair share of discrimination against immigrants in the past. How about we go back to when waves of Irish flooded into the USA and the backlash against them? Remember "No Irish Need Apply"? They along with other Catholics such as the Italians, Poles and Germans were discriminated against. Immigrants like all of my family who just so happen to be from said countries. Their children fought in WW2, opened businesses, and started families. It's why I'm here.
Face it, the country was built by immigrants.
FYI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_history_of_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]